


You Heard Nothing

by MadiYasha



Series: Sickfic Prompts [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt Fill, Sickfic, Sickfic Prompts, it's always sickfic isnt it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 07:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadiYasha/pseuds/MadiYasha
Summary: There was a progression to the way Jessie got sick. Her team was never sure at what point she went from ignorance to outright denial, only that she vehemently fought the notion until she absolutely could not any longer.---For Wordmage's "Sickfic Prompts" challenge on tumblr!





	You Heard Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jessicarocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessicarocket/gifts).



> PROMPT: (character) is obviously coming down sick - sneezing, sniffling, coughing - and absolutely refusing to admit to it, let alone take things easy.
> 
> REQUESTED BY: Jessicarocket angel of my heart
> 
> \---
> 
> Hey y'all what's up who wanted more sickfic? No one? too bad I got 13 prompt requests on tumblr and now I live here. My city now. I'm gonna give everyone colds. U get a cold. U get a cold. Everyone gets a cold.
> 
> If you're reading these notes like "where the fuck is DTE17" dw i'm working on it. 8k in currently. Words aren't happening and there's no point in forcing em so I'm taking it slow with the hopes that the final product will turn out nicely. As it is I'm averaging about 1k a day. Which sucks, but it's not nothing. I promise I still care. These are to level my workaholic nature & stop me from guilting myself over not hitting my 4k a day average.
> 
> This fic is typical! It's got all the stupid points I usually put in my sickfic and it's about Jess who I tiredly use the same cliches on over and over. But like, she makes it really easy.
> 
> It's also canon compliant, I hope? Takes place between the end of DP145 ("A Rivalry to Gible On!") and the beginning of DP146 ("Dressed for Jess Success!") the latter is my favourite DP episode because I am a predictable bitch. Oh, also, this one is way longer than I figure most of them are going to be? I was legit expecting drabbles. I think this one turned novel length cause I've kinda had chunks of it floating around my brain for a while. Oopsie.
> 
> Wow these notes are dripping with sarcasm. Love y'all. Thanks for putting up with me always. Enjoy!!!

The progression of it all seemed typical enough.

First, they’d reeled in a sharpedo where they’d expected a gible, and—knowing their luck—the pokémon was less than pleased at the sudden change in atmosphere. It had chased them through the sunlit lake, taking bites out of their paddles until they were nothing more than overglorified sticks. That was the most typical—that was another day in the life of this particular trio of tricksters.

Sharpedo went for the boat’s underside when it had grown tired of gnashing blindly in every direction, annoyed by the shrill sound of the intruders’ pathetic screams. Naturally, they went flying into the lake, surfacing only to paw at the air for oxygen like silly mammals so often did. The brutal pokémon let them breathe only for a moment before ramming into the lot of them hard and sending them hurtling in a pile toward the unforgiving land. With a huffed-out cry of its name, it turned swiftly before speeding off, dousing them with even more frigid Sinnoh lakewater.

Again, all of this was typical. The amount of times the Rockets had been thrown into the air, into the water, hanging from the trees with uniforms viable nooses—they all began to blur together, and their pain tolerance evened the incidents out, over time. Team Rocket got up, drenched and shivering, and desperately tried to pry the moisture from their bones. Jessie smoothed her hair back in a flawless gesture that somehow returned its volume in full force, returning Wobbuffet before he had the chance to Mirror Coat the water off himself and send it flying in every direction. Meowth shook head to toe as if to carry the patient pokémon's weight, and James ran freshwater out of his right glove. Typical.

“Camp?” Meowth whined, resigned.

“Camp,” James echoed. “What say you, Jess? Are we all gible’d out for today?”

The redhead squeezed more droplets from long locks before placing her hands on her hips, and the unpleasant situation was immediately taken over by one of her cautiously optimistic smiles. 

“Well, you do know what they say!” she chirped. “Early to bed, early to Contest Hall!”

_ Right, _ James and Meowth thought in perfect unison.  _ They definitely say that _ .

Somehow, in all the chaos of a couple extra twerps showing up and dragging at their heels, the two of them had forgotten that Lilypad Town was a mere stroll away, its towering stadium just beckoning Coordinators inside. At its fringes was a cabin—one of the ones set up for passing trainers to reside in, and judging by the colouration of the small slit that adorned its door, it hadn’t yet been claimed for the night.

“Lucky break!” Jessie had shouted, practically pirouetting toward it, and her team lit up just as well when they saw what it was she was so enthralled about. 

A spurt of luck after a recent streak of bad, not entirely atypical, either. It happened. Their fate was fickle always, a flame that couldn't decide whether or not it had truly burnt out.

Currently, they were nestled around the kotatsu, lounging in pyjamas with uniforms splayed out to dry on a set of boxes that were bunched up against one wall. There was a relative quiet to the room as they went about their nightly routines—with James sucking down instant noodles as he went over blueprints, with Meowth a cat-eared head sticking out from under the blankets as he napped, with Jessie, quietly and dutifully fixing stitches on her Jessilina costume.

She cleared her throat once, hands swerving a little as she did so, and there was a quiet curse under her breath as she unearthed her stitch ripper and tried to undo the mistake. Truthfully, her focus was lost somewhere in the fog in her head tonight, and the odd, dull pain whenever she swallowed wasn’t leaving no matter how many times she tried to uproot it. James rested a side-glance on her as she cleared her throat again, this time trying to make it sound more natural, more ladylike in all its roughness. It did nothing to dislodge whatever was bothering her, and she rubbed at her temple with a sigh.

“I’m positively beat,” Jessie said, throwing needles back into her kit with little organization. “None of you are to disturb my beauty sleep tonight, understand? Registration is tomorrow morning and I intend to be at the doors when they open.”

“God forbid ya miss _registration_ ,” Meowth said, half-awake.

“It’s happened before,” James reminded him, and the cat shot him a look that asked if he really wanted to make this a fight. Jessie’s already-hard-to-keep-up-with personality amplified a hundredfold in the midst of a contest, and neither of them were particularly thrilled about balancing work and play effectively with her moving a mile a minute, leaving them in her dust.

“I’ll wisely elect to ignore the comments from the peanut gallery,” Jessie said, pulling herself out of the kotatsu, and James couldn’t help but worriedly peer into the way she fiercely shivered when the night air hit her bare legs. Full-bodied, with her hands at her forearms, buried in her hair. It was only a moment before she composed herself, crawling into the futon adjacent.

“Goodnight!” she said, oddly complacent, and Meowth muttered a half-hearted goodnight that James followed with his own, blurted out and sudden. 

Normally, the nights prefacing a contest, Jessie pulled all nighters and meticulously worked on appeals. She focused hard on her work and lost track of time, pulled back to camp by her team as the sun was rising. She didn’t study contests, she became them—passion firing off her in bursts, never slowing down.

Face buried in ratty blankets, another forceful noise left the back of her throat. Try as she might to muffle it through what she had at her disposal, her team heard. 

Bad luck was typical, and so was dumb luck. Tonight, the only thing atypical was Jessie.

 

* * *

 

“This doesn’t bode well, does it?”

“Don’t t’ink so.”

James and Meowth were awkwardly trailing behind Jessie, trying to keep their voices at a low as she stomped away from the registration hall, head held high in the air. There was an incredible air of confidence to her, no different from her normal one, except that her voice was starting to dissolve to a croaky mess and she couldn’t go more than thirty seconds without sniffling, cheeks and nose painted red in the thawing Sinnoh springtime.

There was a progression to the way Jessie got sick. Her team was never sure at what point she went from ignorance to outright denial, only that she vehemently fought the notion until she absolutely could not any longer. When she briefly swiveled to let out a high-pitched sneeze into her arm, worry bloomed in James’ heart. The contest was in a day. The contest was in a day, and he had a feeling Jessie was not interested in missing it just because she went and caught herself a cold.

Right now, things seemed okay. The weather was fair, and she was effectively bundled up in her contest costume, and maybe if she wasn’t inclined to push herself, things wouldn’t get any—

“We’re practicing appeals ‘til the miltank come home!”

James pressed a hand to his head, sighing. He hadn’t even noticed they’d made it back to the cabin’s entrance until she’d announced her plans for the evening. As if sensing the oncoming storm, Meowth stepped in.

“Got anyt’in’ in mind for da foihst round, Jess?”

“Always,” she attempted a lilt through her fading cadence. “Though I hadn’t settled on a single one yet, no.”

“Dat’s da case, why don’t we take dis one easy ‘n’ do our failsafe?”

_ Bless your genius, Meowth, _ James found himself thinking. Him and the cat were clearly on the same wavelength, a river they so often found themselves paddling while their third swam ahead with the speed of an Olympian.

“Really? Now?” Jessie inquired. “And why is that?”

She punctuated the question with a dry cough that made her team cringe a little, and the irony of the two motions together should have hit her head on. If it did, she ignored it wholeheartedly.

“Yanmega an’ Seviper’s been workin’ dey’s butts off lately,” Meowth reasoned, then dropped his voice. “An’ between you an’ me, I don’t t'ink Wobbuffet’s cut out for da contest life.”

“You do have a point,” she pressed a finger to her chin. “And I am behind on ribbons… perhaps a shakeup like that is just what we need to win me my next contest!”

Relieved that she’d taken the bait, the cat pressed on.

“An’ check it!” he boasted, pointing to the sky. “Da wind’s nowhere in sight! Dat means today’s a prime pick for practicin’ performances!”

She blinked curiously at his words, taking in her surroundings, the sun shining down on the lot of them doing nothing for the chill in her bones. There was  _ clearly _ a draft, right?

“You sure?” Jessie said, sniffling a little. “I’m freezing.”

That was all the confirmation her team needed, and the pair tried not to fall into the lingering look they had the instinct to share upon hearing it. Jessie rarely felt a chill when she was walking through a literal blizzard. She almost exclusively complained about being cold when she was coming down sick, and the odds weren’t looking good, given that it was actually pretty nice out that day and she was far more modestly dressed than usual.

“Perhaps it’s just the lingering winter,” James waved her off, desperate to move the interaction forward. “In any case, it’s the best conditions we’ve seen to practice thus far.”

“Whaddya say, Jess?” Meowth extended his paw. “Ready ta blow them away?”

“Who am I to deny the Sinnoh region the glorious chance to see me on stage once more?” she grinned, taking it in her own. 

With relative ease, he leapt up onto her shoulder, and the pair ducked farther into the forest while their third quietly followed.

* * *

“On t’ree dis time!”

“Alright! One… two… three!”

Meowth rocketed off Jessie’s shoulder, and she fought through foggy senses and weakening knees to toss the flimsy paper forward, angling it in such a way that it sailed through the air. In one flawless motion, Meowth sliced it to thin strips, using the momentum of the attack to propel himself back toward Jessie. All things considered, the appeal was going well, for what they had to work with and how little they'd practiced it thus far.

…until the uncomfortable itch in Jessie's sinuses resurfaced, and she pitched forward to sneeze again, fumbling the landing. Every other practice appeal had been ruined in exactly this manner left and right, and at this point it was clear the universe did not want things to go smoothly.

Paper rained down around the pair, and Meowth pulled himself up off the ground where he’d missed his post on her extended arm. Jessie trailed off into chesty coughs she tried to stifle into her closed fist with little avail. If she really thought she was hiding this, maybe the fever had already set in and baked her brain to nothing.

The woman swallowed thickly, blinking herself back in an attempt to regain her composure. There was still time for all of this to just be an unfortunate coincidence. She was cold because she’d recently dropped a couple pounds, hard to keep much of anything on your bones when you’re starving for a living! Her lungs were bothered by something in the air, maybe she was allergic to some kind of Sinnohan flower she’d never encountered before, of course! The second she admitted she was sick was the second everything fell  _ apart _ —her team would act like children about it and insist she sleep it off, and there was absolutely no time for that with a contest on the horizon, especially when she only had two ribbons lining her pocket. She’d gone her whole life without making a single Grand Festival, and that ended _this year_.

“One more,” she said, voice thick. “We have all the maneuvers down pat! It’s just this  _ blasted _ Sinnoh air—”

The outburst only caused her to cough more, and she relented for a moment, sniffling hard and pale-faced.

“Jess, maybe this is as far as we’re meant to get tonight,” James suggested, unsure of how to proceed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jessie retorted, her tone pointed. “As it stands, this is never going to get me to the battle round.”

“There’s always the chance tomorrow’s air will be kinder on your lungs,” he proposed. “What’s the harm in waking up early and practicing before the contest?”

“Hey, buddy—” Meowth protested, and James shoved him with his boot.

“The harm is,” she put her hands on her hips. “What if it’s  _ just as insufferable?  _ Are you going to say the same thing, then? ”

“You have my sworn oath, I won’t say a word in protest,” the man threw his hands up. “Feel free to practice to your heart’s content! Throw Meowth through the ringer if you must!”

“BUDDY—” another kick at the cat’s backside.

Jessie looked like she had another comeback lingering on her tongue, but it quickly dissolved when the breeze finally did return, and she shivered involuntarily, ducking into her dress. Nothing was on her side today. If the wind lingered, there was no chance they’d be able to pull off this appeal with the ease they were hoping.

_ Why couldn’t we just use actual ramen dough in our practice… _ she lamented.  _ Phone Chris up, I doubt he’d mind paying— _

Another gale sung past, wracking her with chills, and she moaned grumpily under her breath, relenting.

“Mark my words, you two,” Jessie said, eyeing them sharply. “This is one promise I refuse to let you  _ cons _ back out on.”

“I told you, you have my word!” James placed a fist over his heart, feigning confidence. “No point in a trickster trying to trick one of his own, right Meowth?”

He nudged the cat, more gently this time, and Meowth shot him an acid-drenched glare before complying.

“Jimmy’s right!” he said with fabricated joy. “I wanna see ya cream dose twoihps in da Grand Festival just as much as da next guy!”

The praise made her heart sing, so much so that somewhere along the way, she forgot how eager they were to call it a night despite the stakes being so unbelievably high. The cabin was sounding nice, right about then—the warmth of the kotatsu just begging to pull the stubborn frigidness from her aching form.

They made their way back, the boys traveling behind as they so often did. When the rustle in the trees was enough to drown out the tones of their conversation, Meowth pulled James down to his level.

“Hey,” he whispered. “What game are ya playin’? T’rowin’ me under da bus like dat?”

“Relax,” James assured him. “Look at her.”

Ahead of them, Jessie was wavering a little on her feet, arms drawn tightly in an attempt to keep warm. She coughed weakly, barely audible above the wind.

“She can’t deny she’s sick for much longer,” he noted. “By my predictions, she’ll get halfway through her makeup tomorrow before she collapses, and that’s when we’ll force her back to bed.”

“An’ da contest?” Meowth inquired, sounding genuinely concerned. 

“We’ll figure something out,” James said, running options in his head, none of which seemed preferable. 

 

“We always do.”

* * *

Jessie drew herself closer into her folded arms, trying to let the heat seep into her bones, eyes burning to drift away but every other part of her vehemently refusing.

Her team was asleep in the quiet of the night, and she was buried in the kotatsu, restless and aching. The ice under her skin refused to relent itself, even with the heater turned up and the device that lay heavy on top of her—that might have been something she could sleep through, but the congestion in every part of her lungs was pressing hard against the muscles in her face. High cheekbones absolutely  _ burned _ with soreness, and no matter how much she rubbed weak circles into them, the pain remained.

She pressed her temple to her arm, wondering if the different angle might assuage her pounding headache. It worked, for a moment, before her breath hitched once, then twice, and she stifled a round of forceful sneezes into the loose crook of her arm.

It was a  _ fit _ —which was annoying in concept, but far more annoying in what it told. Historically, those only ever assaulted her when caught some sort of bug. She turned weakly to the side, face still resting on her arm, forced to breathe through her mouth and running her throat raw with every unsteady inhale. Without prying eyes on her, she'd completely unraveled, the glue holding her together washing off and turning cracks to shattered glass.

_ This is not happening, _ she repeated in her head.  _ Mind over matter. Mind over matter. Mind— _

Despite everything, her reflexes remained. Jessie jolted upward at the sound of the door behind her sliding open, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand in a childlike attempt to compose herself. She knew by the sound of the footsteps behind her it was James, and he made his way over to her quietly, taking a seat beside her.

_ Ugh, _ she thought.  _ There are some situations where constant companionship really isn’t ideal. _

“Can’t sleep?” she said to him, hoping to lead the conversation herself. It backfired when she heard her voice—stuffy and obvious and one hell of a challenge, even for an actress as talented as herself.

“Seems so,” he allowed her. “You either, huh?”

“It’s unfortunate, but I think I might have succumb to the pre-contest jitters,” Jessie lamented. “I’m like a child on Christmas eve.”

James swallowed, gathering his boldness as he turned to face her.

“I think it’s more than just pre-contest jitters, Jess.”

Her blood ran cold, but she retained her dismissive demeanor despite it. 

“Can’t imagine what you’re going on about,” she said, and her body betrayed her as badly as it could’ve in that moment, the persistent itch at the back of her throat sending her into another fit of sneezing while her partner extended his hand to rub circles in her back.

“I woke up because everyone can  _ hear _ you out here, sounding sick as a growlithe,” James finally said.

“You heard  _ nothing, _ ” she said, bleary-eyed and sniffling weakly. 

“Jess,” he persisted. “You’re unwell, and you should be in bed.”

“I’m not  _ sick, _ ” she fought. “Someone’s gossiping about me, that’s all.”

“Right,” he said. “That explains the non-stop coughing, and the woozy steps, and the fact that you’ve been shivering like a snorunt all day, and oh! Of course—”

He placed the back of his hand on her cheek, and she had to fight the urge to shudder at how cool the contrast was.

“—the fact that you’re strangely warm,” he peered into her, oddly stern. “You know you’ve come down with a cold, I know it, Meowth knows it, why not just take it easy?”

“There’s no  _ time _ to take it easy, James!” she shot back, burning her throat with every word. “I’ve waited my whole life to be Top Coordinator, and things are actually looking up for once! I can’t get sick right now! There’s only so many contests I can enter!”

“So  _ rest _ , dear,” he said, hands still tracing the small of her back. “If you save up your strength now, there might still be a chance for tomorrow.”

It was a lie, of course. Tomorrow she’d be knocked out with a fever, crawling out of her bed with vision blurred and arm pawing at her costume. He’d been beside her for long enough to understand precisely how she operated under the weather. Much as it pained him to mislead her, he cared for her health more than her trust.

“I _hate it_ when you talk sensibly,” she said to him, her voice syllabic through a fortress of congestion. Resigned, she buried her face back in her folded arms, lungs heavy and aching muscles heavier.

That was… _probably_ the closest thing James was going to get to compliance. He counted his blessings, intensifying the rhythm of the circles he was rubbing into her back before moving his hands up to her screaming shoulders and transitioning his ministrations into a full-on massage. She let out a small, relief-laden groan, resisting the urge to drift off as he softened his tone.

“Here’s what’s what,” James started. “Tomorrow before the contest I’ll bust into my secret stash of roserade tea and make you the best cuppa you’ve had in your life.”

“Your secret stash of—?” she woozily turned to face him. “You _cheat!_ ”

“A secret I’ve kept dutifully!” the man defended. “And here I am, divulging my most valuable information to my partner in her time of illness.”

“If you share it with me, it’s gonna be awfully hard to keep me away from it again,” she warned.

“I’m painfully aware,” he said. “Far harder to see you run down like this, though.”

“If that's what you think,” Jessie relented, melting into his touch. 

“I’ll make you tea, and when you get home with your ribbon we’ll bundle you up and shove you back under here,” he gestured to the kotatsu. “We’ll bring you whatever your heart desires.”

“I don’t want your pity,” she protested weakly.

“Hardly,” James said. “No pity for a force of nature. Only good friends who know when to treat her like the queen she is.”

“Always, you mean?” Despite everything, Jessie smiled.

“Always, but now especially.”

He trailed off into comfortable silence, hands firm on her back and heartbeat ringing in his ears. It hit him all at once—how anxious he'd been all day, precisely how much worry for her he had shoved into some dark corner of his psyche in order to properly maneuver into a place where she'd agree to taking better care of herself. Hard as it was to deal with a sick Jessie, he had to remind himself it must've been a million times harder for her.

She began to doze a little, finally quiet in the wake of his gentle embrace. With all he had in him, he wanted her to stand on stage and win that ribbon—and there was no doubt in his mind that she'd try, humanity be damned. Laid back when she was healthy, charging forward stalwart when she was ill, Jessie was made of beautiful, frustrating contradictions.

“Here, into bed with you,” James offered. “I’ll work your aches out until you manage to fall asleep.”

“Angel,” she said, delirious already. “Dumb, idiot angel.”

“Fair enough.”

She stood shakily, suppressing a shiver when the night air hit her again. Her eyes were all but shut completely as James guided her a few steps to her messy futon, laying her on her stomach and continuing to gingerly run his hands across every place she hurt. 

Contradictory. Always contradictory. The thought of anyone seeing her like this—cold-addled and pathetic and indisposed—she couldn't think of anything she feared more. She'd take a swarm of beedrill, a sloth of ursaring, she'd take the longest blast off with the hardest and most unpleasant landing. Anything over this.

But… despite loathing the circumstances… being cared for felt nice. Wrong, inexplicable, and with a gut instinct that screamed  _ find the ulterior motive… _ but still nice.

Her brain was going fuzzy with the fever climbing and exhaustion setting in, and James was humming a quiet sort of lullabye as he continued to work at her. It felt nice to count on someone. She was going to need a miracle, a white tomorrow—but if anyone could make that happen, something told her it would be him.

“Tomorrow's a new day, Jess,” he said quietly, sensing her conscious mind drifting, willing her to dream kinder dreams.

She'd forgotten the chill in her bones in the wake of his unfaltering warmth. Like clockwork, she nodded off.

* * *

“If ya don't get some rest, you're gonna  _ break! _ ”

“True! Doctor James’ orders.”

Jessie let out another shaky whine, knees trembling as her partner supported her with his weight. Her vision faded on the fringes, and she cursed whatever god had picked her out and then promptly abandoned her on the one day she needed all the luck she could get.  She'd woken up, done a full face of makeup, and promptly collapsed as soon as she left the bathroom. James—that absolute _cretin_ — had been expecting this and caught her in his arms almost effortlessly. She hated that he knew her that well, waiting at the door for the moment she stumbled out, too feverish to stand.

“But I'm already  _ registered, _ ” Jessie protested, as though her team didn't know.

She looked back up at her towering costume—a magnum opus, a true milestone in her design career, something she was more proud of than any little passion project before it, any clever disguise meant to mislead the twerp of the week.

...more than any disguise. More than any _disguise_.

“Wait,” Jessie said, eyeing James’ features, soft and inviting, narrow eyes honey-sweet. Imagined them framed by scarlet curls and golden specs, face done up and doll-esque. He peered into her, curious, and Jessie powered through the pain that was finally registering in her throat long after she'd screamed at them, voice barely coherent.

“...I know _just_ what we’ll do.”

Through the fever, through the sickness, through the pain—her devious tone was buried. Thick and stuffy and utterly overpowered by the virus, but undeniably present. Her partner blinked, doe-eyed as ever, fearful for whatever her cooked mind had conjured.

She was going to need a miracle, a white tomorrow—but if anyone could make that happen, she knew without a doubt it would be him.

 


End file.
